“Teach the Erring Soul” 1669–1674dispense with them before the appointed time. Also, though presented as nature’s
free offering, it is quite literally the Devil’s table, the very symbol of idolatry. Side-
stepping all these intellectual traps, Jesus refuses the banquet as the gift of an evil
giver, and lays claim himself, as nature’s Lord, to all nature’s goods.
To Satan’s offer of riches as a necessary means to accomplish great deeds and gain
a kingdom, Jesus responds with an extended critique of monarchy based in part on
Plato and Aristotle. To Satan’s examples of wealthy kings he opposes several He-
brew judges and Roman republican leaders who rose from poverty to greatness,^115
as well as “the shepherd lad” David (439) who became Israel’s king. Rejecting
“with like aversion” both riches and realms (457), he restates Milton’s core political
principle, that rule over the self is a better kingship and that without it a ruler is
unfit to govern others: “Subject himself to Anarchy within, / Or lawless passions in
him which he serves” (2.471–2). Like Aristotle, Jesus claims that it is more mag-
nanimous to give or relinquish a kingdom than to assume one,^116 and then asserts
the greater worthiness of his own spiritual kingship:
But to guide Nations in the way of truth
By saving Doctrine, and from errour lead
To know, and knowing worship God aright,
Is yet more Kingly, this attracts the Soul,
Governs the inner man, the nobler part,
That other o’re the body only reigns,
And oft by force, which to a generous mind
So reigning can be no sincere delight. (2.473–80)Next, Satan urges Jesus to seek glory and empire by emulating great warriors and
world conquerors – Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Scipio Africanus, Pompey
- and Jesus responds by redefining true fame and the acts that merit it. As in Lycidas,
true fame is bestowed by God; it cannot emanate from the people at large, “a herd
confus’d, / A miscellaneous rabble” (3.49–50). Nor does it rightly belong to con-
ventional epic heroes, military conquerors, and empire-builders, who “rob and
spoil, burn, slaughter, and enslave / Peaceable Nations” (3.75–7).^117 It pertains rather
to “deeds of peace, by wisdom eminent,” to Job who bore Satan’s wrongs “with
Saintly patience,” and the wise teacher Socrates, “For truths sake suffering death
unjust” (3.91–8). Emphasizing that Alexander and Caesar “must be titl’d Gods”
and idolatrously worshipped (3.81–3), Milton has his hero castigate as “sacrile-
gious” all those – including by implication divine-right kings – who seek such
glory, which to God “alone of right belongs” (3.140–1).^118
With the line “But to a Kingdom thou art born, ordain’d / To sit upon thy Father
David’s Throne” (3.152–3), Satan turns the discourse from Jesus’s own desires and
values to the kingly role prescribed by his office. Typically, Satan takes literally the
prophecy that Jesus is to reign as king of Israel, while Jesus redefines Israel to refer to
the invisible church his spiritual kingdom, and his millennial kingdom to come.